The Alpha variant was not associated with excess nosocomial SARS-CoV-2 infection in a multi-centre UK hospital study.
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Authors
Boshier, Florencia AT
Stirrup, Oliver
Guerra-Assunção, José Afonso
Alcolea-Medina, Adela
Becket, Angela H
Byott, Matthew
Charalampous, Themoula
Filipe, Ana da Silva
Frampton, Dan
Glaysher, Sharon
Khan, Tabassum
Kulasegara-Shylini, Raghavendran
Kele, Beatrix
Monahan, Irene M
Mollett, Guy
Parker, Matthew
Pelosi, Emanuela
Randell, Paul
Roy, Sunando
Taylor, Joshua F
Weller, Sophie J
Wilson-Davies, Eleri
Wade, Phillip
Williams, Rachel
Cutino-Moguel, Teresa
Freemantle, Nick
Hayward, Andrew C
Holmes, Alison
Hughes, Joseph
Mahungu, Tabitha W
Nebbia, Gaia
Nastouli, Eleni
Partridge, David G
Pope, Cassie F
Price, James R
Saeed, Kordo
Shin, Gee Yen
de Silva, Thushan I
Snell, Luke B
Thomson, Emma C
Witney, Adam A
COG-UK HOCI Variant Substudy consortium*, The COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium
Publication Date
2021-12Journal Title
J Infect
ISSN
0163-4453
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Language
eng
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Physical Medium
Print-Electronic
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Boshier, F. A., Venturini, C., Stirrup, O., Guerra-Assunção, J. A., Alcolea-Medina, A., Becket, A. H., Byott, M., et al. (2021). The Alpha variant was not associated with excess nosocomial SARS-CoV-2 infection in a multi-centre UK hospital study.. J Infect https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.09.022
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Recently emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants have been associated with an increased rate of transmission within the community. We sought to determine whether this also resulted in increased transmission within hospitals. METHODS: We collected viral sequences and epidemiological data of patients with community and healthcare associated SARS-CoV-2 infections, sampled from 16th November 2020 to 10th January 2021, from nine hospitals participating in the COG-UK HOCI study. Outbreaks were identified using ward information, lineage and pairwise genetic differences between viral sequences. RESULTS: Mixed effects logistic regression analysis of 4184 sequences showed healthcare-acquired infections were no more likely to be identified as the Alpha variant than community acquired infections. Nosocomial outbreaks were investigated based on overlapping ward stay and SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence similarity. There was no significant difference in the number of patients involved in outbreaks caused by the Alpha variant compared to outbreaks caused by other lineages. CONCLUSIONS: We find no evidence to support it causing more nosocomial transmission than previous lineages. This suggests that the stringent infection prevention measures already in place in UK hospitals contained the spread of the Alpha variant as effectively as other less transmissible lineages, providing reassurance of their efficacy against emerging variants of concern.
Keywords
COG-UK HOCI Variant Substudy consortium*, The COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium
Sponsorship
COG-UK HOCI funded by COG-UK consortium. The COG-UK consortium is supported by funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and Genome Research Limited, operating as the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
Funder references
MRC (MC_PC_19027)
Medical Research Council (MC_PC_19027)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.09.022
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/330149
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